Immanuel KantPhilosopher
Cox rated him 145 for ages 17 to 26, 2 points below 147. Cox's childhood rating for him was 135.
Is 147 a high IQ?
Yes, very. An IQ of 147 is higher than about 99.91% of people, or roughly 1 in 1,157. It is the first score above the 1-in-1,000 mark, and it is beyond the range of most online tests, including ours.
99.913thpercentile
1 in 1,157score 147 or higher
Highly giftedlevel of giftedness
147IQ scoreTop 0.086%
Where 147 sits on the bell curve
An IQ of 147 is 47 points above the average of 100, or 3.13 standard deviations. That is so far into the right-hand tail of the bell curve that the people scoring this high barely show up: about 0.086% of the population, the orange sliver below.
At 147 the curve has flattened almost to nothing: fewer than one person in a thousand is further to the right.
A closer look at an IQ of 147
147 is the point where a classroom comparison stops working. In a school of 1,000 pupils, you would expect fewer than one to score this high. In a town of 100,000 people you would expect around 86. That scarcity is what makes 147 hard to measure as well as hard to reach.
It also shows how much the choice of scale matters. On the old Stanford-Binet scale with a standard deviation of 16, the same standing reads as about 150; on the Cattell scale it reads as about 175. Someone quoting a "175 IQ" from an online quiz may be describing exactly the result a Wechsler test would call 147.
How many people have an IQ of 147?
On the bell curve, about 1 person in 1,157 scores 147 or higher. The animation builds a crowd until you would expect to find one.
A crowd of 1,157 people
1,157
Each dot is one person. In a crowd this size, on average, just one would score 147 or above: the orange dot.
People scoring 147 or higher, by population
| Worldwide (8.2 billion people) | about 7,100,000 |
| India | about 1,270,000 |
| United States | about 295,000 |
| United Kingdom | about 60,000 |
| Canada | about 36,000 |
| Australia | about 23,900 |
Population: World Bank, total population, 2025. Counts assume the same bell curve in every country and are rounded. Real tests can't sort people this finely, as the next sections explain.
Which high-IQ societies accept an IQ of 147?
High-IQ societies set entry as a percentile, then print the matching score for each test they accept. A supervised 147 would meet 4 of the 6 bars; the next, Prometheus Society, needs about 160.
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MensaTop 2% (98th percentile) on an approved, supervised test130met
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IntertelTop 1% (99th percentile); lists a Wechsler full-scale IQ of 135135met
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Triple Nine Society99.9th percentile; lists a WAIS full-scale IQ of 146146met
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International Society for Philosophical Enquiry99.9th percentile; lists a WAIS-III or WAIS-IV full-scale IQ of 146146met
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Prometheus Society1 in 30,000 (99.997th percentile), four standard deviations above average160not met
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Mega SocietyOne in a million, beyond the range of standard tests171not met
Scores for Mensa, Intertel, Triple Nine and ISPE are the Wechsler figures those societies list or that match their percentile. Prometheus and Mega give only a rarity; the scores shown are the matching points on the standard scale. Prometheus says no test currently being given is approved for its entry. Online test results are not accepted by any of them.
Can an IQ test measure 147?
Most professional tests stop at a full-scale score of 160, so 147 is 13 points below where they stop. The bars show the highest full-scale score each test can report.
Even inside that range, the very top is thinly measured. Tests are scored against a norm sample: for the adult Wechsler test, the WAIS-IV, that sample was 2,200 people aged 16 to 90. On the bell curve, you would expect about 1.9 of those people to score 147 or higher. Scores this high are projected from the shape of the curve rather than compared with many real people.
Every score also carries measurement error. A professional report gives a range, typically about five points either way, so 147 is best read as roughly 142 to 152. Online tests are rougher still; ours reports up to 145. How accurate are online IQ tests?
Sources: WAIS-IV range and norm sample from Canivez (2010), Mental Measurements Yearbook review; Stanford-Binet 5 and its Extended IQ from PRO-ED; WISC-V extended norms from Pearson Technical Report #6 (2019). Striped bars are extended scales, used only when a person hits the normal ceiling.
147 IQ on other scales
The same performance gives different numbers on scales with a different standard deviation, and the gap is widest at the top.
147standard scale (SD 15), used by Wechsler tests and on this page
150older Stanford-Binet scale (SD 16)
175Cattell scale (SD 24), used by some older and online tests
It works the other way too. A 147 quoted from a Cattell-scale test equals only about 129 on the standard scale, below the usual 130 cut-off for high-IQ societies, and a 147 on an SD 16 test equals about 144. How IQ standard deviations work.
Famous people with an estimated IQ near 147
No historical genius took an IQ test. These figures come from Catharine Cox's 1926 study, which estimated IQs from records of each person's early life, with one rating for childhood and one for ages 17 to 26.
Benjamin FranklinUS statesman and scientist
Cox rated him 145 for ages 17 to 26, 2 points below 147. Cox's childhood rating for him was 145.
Martin LutherLeader of the Reformation
Cox rated him 145 for ages 17 to 26, 2 points below 147. Cox's childhood rating for him was 115.
Source: Cox, C. M. (1926), Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. II: The Early Mental Traits of Three Hundred Geniuses, Stanford University Press. Cox stressed that thin records pull estimates down. Read more in where the historical genius IQ estimates came from.
Why online tests, ours included, stop before 147
Our test has 36 questions, and its score is worked out as 100 plus the share of correct answers minus a half, times 90. That gives about 2.5 points per question and tops out at 145 for a perfect paper. A perfect score can't tell whether you were just good enough or far beyond the hardest question, so we don't report anything higher.
Professional test makers face the same problem with more data. Of the 2,200 children in the WISC-V norm sample, only 16 obtained any composite score of 150 or higher. With so few people at the top, there is little to compare a very high result against, which is why Pearson later added special extended norms for children who hit the ceiling.
Sources: Assessivo scoring method; Raiford, S. E. and others (2019), WISC-V Technical Report #6: Extended Norms, Pearson.
What does an IQ of 147 mean?
An IQ of 147 means a professional test placed your reasoning about two points beyond the Triple Nine bar, in the top 0.1% for your age. In practical terms, it suggests you pick up complex abstract material unusually fast. It doesn't predict how well you'll do at any particular job; experience, effort and interest still decide most of that.
Where 147 falls among the levels of giftedness
115–129Mildly gifted
130–144Moderately gifted
145–159Highly gifted
160–179Exceptionally gifted
180+Profoundly gifted
Levels and ranges from Gross, M. U. M. (2000), "Exceptionally and Profoundly Gifted Students: An Underserved Population", Understanding Our Gifted. They are a guide for education, not a ranking of people.
How far 147 is from other milestones
17 points above the usual Mensa level (130)a score of 147 is about 26 times rarer than 130
1 point above the Triple Nine and ISPE bar (146)a score of 147 is about 1.3 times rarer than 146
13 points below the ceiling of most professional tests (160)reaching 160 is about 27 times rarer than 147
3.13 standard deviations above averageaverage is 100 and one standard deviation is 15 points
IQ 147 compared with nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 143 | 99.79th | 1 in 482 | Moderately gifted |
| 145 | 99.86th | 1 in 741 | Highly gifted |
| 147 | 99.913th | 1 in 1,157 | Highly gifted |
| 149 | 99.945th | 1 in 1,838 | Highly gifted |
| 151 | 99.966th | 1 in 2,968 | Highly gifted |
Questions about an IQ of 147
Is 147 a high IQ?
Yes. 147 is a very high IQ: about 1 person in 1,157 scores this high or higher, which puts it at the 99.913th percentile. It is above the 130 that most definitions use for a high IQ, and at or above the 146 used by the Triple Nine Society for its 99.9th percentile entry.
How rare is an IQ of 147?
About 1 person in 1,157 scores 147 or higher, on the standard bell curve. Across the world's population of about 8.2 billion, that would be roughly 7,100,000 people.
Is an IQ of 147 good?
Yes, by any measure. 147 is higher than about 99.91% of people. Remember that a score this high needs a supervised professional test to be confirmed, and that it describes reasoning on a test, not every kind of talent.
Can you join Mensa with an IQ of 147?
Yes. Mensa accepts the top 2% on an approved, supervised test, which is about 130 on the standard scale. A supervised 147 would also meet the bar for Intertel, Triple Nine Society and International Society for Philosophical Enquiry. Online test results are not accepted.
What does 147 IQ mean?
It means a result 47 points, or 3.13 standard deviations, above the average for your age. On the levels used by gifted education researchers, 147 is highly gifted (145–159).
Why did my online test give me 147?
Some online tests report scores far into the tail, but few have enough very hard questions or enough high scorers in their data to back it up. Check the test's scale (a Cattell-scale 147 is only about 130 on the standard scale) and treat the result as a hint, not a measurement.
Related: what counts as a good IQ score, the highest IQ in the world, famous people's IQs and the full IQ scale and range chart.
A full IQ score of 147 combines several skills. Our guides explain each one: spatial reasoning, verbal reasoning, processing speed, fluid vs crystallized intelligence and abstract reasoning, or try the free pattern recognition test.
Famous names are often linked to scores like 147, with or without a source. We checked the evidence behind Stephen Hawking's IQ, Bill Gates' IQ, Elon Musk's IQ, Garry Kasparov's IQ, Terence Tao's IQ, Einstein's IQ, Isaac Newton's IQ and Nikola Tesla's IQ.
Curious where you'd land?
The free Assessivo IQ test gives an estimated IQ and percentile in about 25 minutes. It reports scores up to 145; for anything higher, a supervised professional assessment is the only reliable route.
Take the free IQ testPortraits are pencil-style sketches by Assessivo, based on: Immanuel Kant after Johann Gottlieb Becker (1768), public domain. Benjamin Franklin after Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (about 1785), public domain. Martin Luther after Lucas Cranach the Elder (1528), public domain.